Limited 2-CD edition includes a bonus live disc Live War Recorded in Manchester 1992:1. The IVth Crusade (04:46)2. Dying Creed (04:36)3. Spearhead (06:30)4. Unleashed (05:24)5. Ritual (04:32)6. Where Next to Conquer (03:54)7. War Master (04:29)8. As the World Burns (06:48)9. Cenotaph (05:03)

BOLT THROWER ...FOR VICTORY reviews

Specialists/collaborators reviews

"...For Victory" is the 5th full-length studio album by UK death metal act Bolt Thrower. The album was released through Earache Records in November 1994. "The IVth Crusade (1992)" earned Bolt Thrower a lot of critical acclaim and for a release in the death metal genre the album was commercially successful too and provided the band with a position among the elite of UK death metal acts.

"...For Victory" pretty much continues down the same war/battle themed death metal style as it´s predecessor. To me it sounds like they have trimmed the fat though, making "...For Victory" a more compact and consistenly high quality release than "The IVth Crusade (1992)". It´s like they took all the great things from the predecessor but also left out the not so great ones in the process. The music is unmistakably the sound of Bolt Thrower though with heavy downtuned and groove based riffing and simple yet effective songwriting. Karl Willetts sounds more commanding and aggressive than ever while still maintaining his brutal edge. The rest of the band sound tighter than ever too. I´ve been critisizing Andrew Whale´s drumming in the past but I guess all the touring they did in support of "The IVth Crusade (1992)" payed off because here he delivers a great performance.

The 10 track, 39:35 minutes long album is pretty much packed with one gem after another. Very few times during the album´s playing time do the quality drop just slightly. Just take a listen to tracks like "Remembrance", "When Glory Beckons" or the title track which fully display the high qualilty of the brutal yet epic war themed death metal of the band. If I have to mention a minor issue with the album it´s that the tracks are slightly one-dimensional, but it´s to be expected from a death metal album in this vein and from Bolt Thrower in particular. They seldom break out of their formula to the great joy of their fans and to the great despair of their critics. If people who are not familiar with the band´s material ask me which Bolt Thrower album they should start with, I recommend "...For Victory". A 4 - 4.5 star (85%) rating is fully deserved.

Bolt Thrower's For Victory showcases a somewhat matured band. Lyrically, the focus has moved away from SF/fantasy-influenced invocations of warfare and destruction and focus on a more serious consideration of war and its costs. The title track, for instance, includes extracts from a classic poem that is traditionally read on Remembrance Day here in the UK; delivered in Karl Willett's death metal grunt, the poem somehow manages to retain its air of mourning and nostalgia whilst simultaneously gaining a certain angry undertone - it acknowledges the sacrifices the dead have made, whilst at the same time pointing an accusatory finger at those whose failures and misdeeds made their sacrifices necessary in the first place. (The lyrics regularly make reference to concepts related to World War I, suggesting that that particularly wasteful and disgraceful conflict is in their crosshairs.)

And it's precisely that complex mix of emotions which the musicians as a whole are able to express with their performances. The classic Bolt Thrower aggression is tempered and turned into something a bit more nuanced by nostalgic airs and moments of reflection across the album, which on the whole enable the band to pay a suitable level of respect towards the front-line troops who are so often the heroes of their songs whilst issuing a metallic roar of defiance against the insanity of war in the first place. The end result is a brilliant start to this second, more thoughtful phase of Bolt Thrower's career.

While I think that Bolt Thrower's first couple of records were not very good in terms of musicianship (the ideas were interesting), the band eventually improved as musicians and settled on a heavy, groovy, melodic and yet brutal, and unmistakably original, type of death metal, and the band certainly deserves their status as the ultimate war metal band.

"... For Victory" is a very typical 1990s Bolt Thrower album, thankfully, containing heavy and melodic death metal tracks, whose emphasis is on powerful riffage. As is typical of Bolt Thrower, each song contains a few riffs which are repeated a lot and which, within the boundary of the individual song, are both in extension of, and contrast to, one another; this is something Bolt Thrower are very good at and they exploit this ability very well on this album. While there are some heavy and catchy riffs on this album, the groove is largely absent - but in hindsight, that is not a problem since it comes to full fruition later on "Those Once Loyal". Well, writing the groove off completely is perhaps incorrect, since a track like "Tank Mk.I" (great title!) is actually quite groovy.

"... For Victory" is a very robust death metal album and epitomises Bolt Thower's brand of war metal. I would recommend it to fans of death metal who do not mind death metal that emphasises heaviness.